The main purpose of this paper is to examine the validity of the traditional formulations of tag questions and there-insertion, and validate the roles of EMPATHY in grammar. With this inquiry, I hope to establish a "three kinds of be" proposal (i. e., copulative verb, existential verb and auxiliary verb). I will claim in this paper the Apathy Hierarchy1) exerts influence on the Tag Rule. Tag questions have been dealt syntactically up to now, but in this paper I shall deal with them from the epistemological point of view. The following sentences will be discussled to illustrate these points. For example:
(i) The child is going to vomit, isn't it/isn't he/isn't she ?
In contrast to "he" or "she", "it" has emotionally distance connotation (e. g., (1) sex is unknown (2) professional level (e. g., a doctor or a nurse dealing with hundreds of children) (3) emphasizing dislikes (e. g., someone who dislikes children)).
(ii) No one else is around here, are they/is there?
In case of "are they ?", the focus is on people. In contrast, "is there ?" has the focus of the presence of one or more persons.
(iii) That's the bum who ran off with my bike, isn't it/isn't he/isn't she ?
In case of "isn't he/she ?" the sentence shows the speaker's anger or spite against the referent. It seems that the speaker is emotionally involved in the scene.
(iv) *There appeared a ship with black sails on the horizon, didn't there ? (cf. A ship with black sails appeared on the horizon, did't it ?)
A there-presentational sentence would never have the tag. Nobody says thesentence like (iv) in normal speech.2)
NOTES: 1) See Murakami Y. (1985) "On 'There-lnsertion' and 'Empathy'", Tokoha Gakuen Univ. Kiyo, Foreign Lg. Dept., vol. 2.
2) For discussions, see Murakami Y. (1989) "Fukagimonbun no Fushigi", Wadaigen Eigo, vol.1, Tokyo Horei Shuppan Co.